CLEVELAND  About 2½ hours before he faced the Cleveland Indians on Sunday in his second major league start — an appearance baseball zealots might have dubbed the Second Coming — Stephen Strasburg was sprawled on a couch in the Washington Nationals clubhouse. Fast asleep.

Five days and an endless stream of highlights and accolades after his 14-strikeout debut Wednesday, the Nationals pitcher was a picture of placidity, catching a catnap as a college baseball game filled a nearby large-screen television.

"Just another week," the 21-year-old phenom said later of the attention surrounding him. "I've never been really one to read all the stuff and watch everything. I'm still watching TV; I'm just not watching those channels."

Sunday's performance will be no less scrutinized, but the sequel wasn't quite as spectacular as the original. Bothered by control issues exacerbated by his discomfort with the Progressive Field mound, Strasburg lasted 5⅓ innings after walking five and throwing 95 pitches, just shy of the club-imposed limit of 100.

But he managed to record his second victory in a 9-4 Nationals win, lower his ERA to 2.19 and feed the ever-growing expectations as he heads into his third start Friday in Washington against the Chicago White Sox.

Strasburg justified his emerging status as a box-office draw, pleasing Cleveland's largest crowd since opening day by regularly registering 99 and 100 mph with his fastball. He struck out eight and allowed one run on two hits, including a homer by designated hitter Travis Hafner.

The control problems didn't surface until the fourth inning, and by then he had five strikeouts, giving him 19 before yielding his first career walk — the second most for any pitcher since 1900, according to Elias Sports Bureau. The Cincinnati Reds' Johnny Cueto struck out 22 before walking a batter in 2008.

Strasburg kept the Indians grounds crew as busy as the souvenir hawkers, twice asking it to repair the loose dirt where his front foot landed on the mound in his pitching delivery.

"Just slipping a little bit," he said, as low key with the news media after the game as he was in the clubhouse before it. "There's going to be games like that. I can't tell you how many times I was on a mound like that in college. … I wish I could have handled it a little bit better. It kind of got me in a little bit of a funk."

When he walked two consecutive batters to load the bases with one out in the sixth, manager Jim Riggleman lifted the tiring youngster, who left to a round of boos from the crowd of 32,876, unhappy with the extra demands for the groundskeepers.

"His first couple of innings, I thought he was actually throwing the ball better than he did the other night," Riggleman said. "The line score is not going to say it was as good a day for him as it actually was."

Indians hitters were as impressed with Strasburg's control of his curveball and changeup as they were with the blazing fastball.

"Does his heater have as much life as (Justin) Verlander? That's tough to say," said first baseman Russell Branyan, who struck out twice.

"But he's got a quality changeup and breaking ball. To be able to throw three above-average pitches at a young age … "

Big-time attraction

Two games into his career, Strasburg is the biggest individual drawing card in baseball and perhaps the No. 1 attraction since Barry Bonds was chasing Hank Aaron's career home run record. The buzz is reminiscent of Mark Fidrych's magical rookie season in 1976, when the Detroit Tigers pitcher talked to the baseball and filled the stands.

TBS telecast Sunday's game nationally, dropping the Philadelphia Phillies-Boston Red Sox game for the matchup between the two cellar-dwelling teams. The Indians said they issued 50 more news media credentials than normal. The Indians sold more than 10,000 tickets since Strasburg's seven-inning, four-hit debut against the Pittsburgh Pirates on Tuesday, including a game-day walkup crowd of more than 3,800 Sunday. The total attendance for Strasburg's first road appearance was easily the team's highest since opening day.

The Indians even had a souvenir stand dedicated to Strasburg jerseys and T-shirts for the entire series, and it did a brisk pregame business Sunday, with a half-dozen customers in line an hour before first pitch. (The only Indians items offered there were the media guide and yearbook.)

Fans in Nationals apparel were sprinkled throughout the stands, as they came from Washington and several Midwest cities.

Glenn Stewart, 42, a Nationals season ticketholder from Port Tobacco, Md., bought his ticket Friday and made the eight-hour drive. And he said he would be back at work this morning.

So fill in the blank, he was asked: Strasburg is the best Washington pitcher since …

Joe O'Connor, 26, a lawyer from the Detroit area who lived in Washington a couple of years ago, proudly wore the jersey of All-Star third baseman Ryan Zimmerman and expressed a sentiment about his favorite team that would have sounded absurd just a few days ago.

"I like it that I was a Nats fan before it became popular," he said as he sized up the Strasburg items.

The reviews from the pros were a little more cautious but nonetheless effusive.

"He'll probably be a dominant pitcher. We'll have to see what hitters do after they see him a couple of times," said 91-year-old Hall of Famer Bob Feller, who struck out 15 batters in his first major league start as a 17-year-old with the Indians in 1936.

"He has better control than I had when I broke in, although I was four years younger," said Feller, watching from his usual seat in the press box. "He loses 2 or 3 miles an hour on his fastball with men on base, but almost everybody does that. … He'll have his good days and his bad days."

Indians closer Kerry Wood, who vaulted into national prominence with a 20-strikeout game with the Chicago Cubs in his fifth career start, can relate to Strasburg's sudden emergence.

"It was life-changing," he said of his breakout game. "I was just trying to come to work under the radar."

Wood doesn't think Strasburg will suffer much from hitters getting a book on him. "He's still got dominating stuff," Wood says. "He'll be pitching to his strength probably his whole career."

The advice from Feller and Wood to avoid the pitfalls of sudden prominence: keep tuning it out.

"It's tough to do, especially when you're a young player," Wood said. "All the young guys want to read everything that's written about them, until they start reading bad stuff."

Added Feller: "The worst thing you can do is believe all the stuff that's written about yourself. I hear he's a good young man, very friendly and quiet."

Having been around the game long enough to see a roster or two of prodigies fall prey to injuries, like Fidrych and 1950's Brooklyn Dodgers phenom Karl Spooner, Feller put it all in perspective:

"He should have a good career, if he's lucky."

***

Second start

Karl Spooner's place in history is safe. Spooner,
like Stephen Strasburg, was a highly touted prospect whose 27 strikeouts
in his first two starts for the Brooklyn Dodgers remains the major league
record. A look at second starts for Spooner - whose career was derailed
by arm trouble - and other touted arms:

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